Western Digital recently emailed customers warning them about possible data loss when connecting external hard drives to Macs that have OS X Mavericks installed. Several people on the Western Digital forums and Apple’s Support Communities all have threads about lost data after connecting Western Digital external hard drives to computers after updating to Mavericks. In an email to customers, the company warned about using its WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager and WD SmartWare software products with Mavericks and suggests customers uninstall those applications before upgrading to Mavericks, or if they already have upgraded, to uninstall those applications immediately.

The email said the following:

Dear WD Registered Customer,

As a valued WD customer we want to make you aware of new reports of Western Digital and other external HDD products experiencing data loss when updating to Apple's OS X Mavericks (10.9). WD is urgently investigating these reports and the possible connection to the WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager and WD SmartWare software applications. Until the issue is understood and the cause identified, WD strongly urges our customers to uninstall these software applications before updating to OS X Mavericks (10.9), or delay upgrading. If you have already upgraded to Mavericks, WD recommends that you remove these applications and restart your computer.

The WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager, and WD SmartWare software applications are not new and have been available from WD for many years, however solely as a precaution WD has removed these applications from our website as we investigate this issue.

Sincerely,
Western Digital

It appears that most of the complaints seem to center around Western Digital drives but the company does say other drives may have issues as well.

Did any of you Western Digital external drive owners experience any issues? If so, how did you deal with it?

No problems here either running a mid 2010 iMac with Mavericks , 6 Seagate drives and 2 small WD passports and no data loss. I also never use the software bundled with hard drives. I just reformat them.